


the first twelve thousand miles

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, BFFs, Friendship, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Spoilers, Working My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony try very hard not to be friends. They fail rather epically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the first twelve thousand miles

**Author's Note:**

> post-movie. so spoilers all over.

 

 

 

**one**

Tony compliments his choice of ride, glancing at Steve's motorbike with an expression of unadulterated envy.

`Where are you going, anyway?´

`I don't know,´ Steve shrugs. `I just feel like riding on, for a little while.´

`You know how to get there? Has anyone explained about GPS?´

`What's wrong with using a map?´

Steve says it with the right amount of honesty and self-awareness. It's the first time Tony smiles – _really_ , absolutely smiles– at Steve.

`You are a riot, Captain,´ he says flatly. `Don't be a stranger.´

But _a little while_ becomes the better part of a year.

 

 

 

**two**

The first time Tony calls him by his first name Steve knows the man well enough to know there's some purpose behind the precise, clipped tone in which he says it.

It's the middle of nowhere –Steve has become fond of a variety of _nowhere_ s since he got on the road, nowhere is usually old-fashioned enough for him, nowhere usually has formica tables and stool seats of fading red leather and one can sit and watch the road outside for hours, stare as trucks and clouds pass– and he doesn't ask how Tony found him. There's no immediate danger, or else Stark wouldn't be sitting with him in a service station, eyeing the coffee pot a waitress with a name tag that says “Edna” is carrying, Tony murmuring _I'm pretty sure they don't have an espresso machine here_. Or maybe _it is_ urgent, so urgent that Tony, catching Steve's questioning glance, spends some twenty minutes patiently explaining what a spiced chai latte is.

Some times Steve just watches people trying to explain things they believe he knows nothing about (even when he does), because they seem to be really enjoying their own explanations.

The twenty minute lecture on chai lattes is somehow connected with Director Fury asking them to get on board with S.H.I.E.L.D. again, as a front to calm down some interested third parties. As they –the so-called Avengers, although Steve stills has trouble getting his head around them as an ongoing team, as something permanent and part of his life now– are now the government considers them a group of “rogue” superheroes.

Steve thinks _rogue_ denotes animosity.

Tony thinks it sounds cool.

`I told him _no_ , by the way, Fury. If that is all the same to you, Captain.´

Doesn't seem like he took anyone else's opinion into account. And yet Steve is not particularly annoyed: he would have made the same call. Tony looks at him from the corner of his eye, a moment of doubt flashing across his usually relaxed features.

`No, I agree,´ Steve assures him.

And hey, now that he knows _exactly_ what a chai latte is Steve can happily order his plate of bacon and a grapefruit juice. Tony looks at this with a horrified expression, like he fears the cutlery is going to give them bubonic plague. Then he falls into an uncharacteristic silence.

`There was something bothering me for years, ´ he says after a while. `Ever since I became Iron Man, really. Ever since I realized what the suit – what _I_ could do. People like us, Steve, we are accountable to no one. That really bothered me. When I thought it was just me. I doubt any government could hold me down if I were to lose control, if I became one of the bad guys. Do you have any idea how scary that thought is? Maybe you've never contemplated it because you are... you are –and by no means is this a complain, quite the...– but I think about it _all the time_. Or I used to. Because I believe we have the solution. People like us, you, me, Bruce, even Thor. We can't be accountable to no one. No one except each other. You know what I mean?´

Steve wonders if Tony always uses so many words.

`I think I do,´ he replies.

Tony's voice softens.

`I don't trust the government. And I sure as hell don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. But I trust you. I can trust our stupid band of superfreaks. We can keep each other in check.´

And the thing is: it's easy to give Tony a reassuring nod because he knows what he means. Steve trusts this strange man, although he doesn't know how come. Maybe it's the last remnant of a connection to his old world; maybe the Stark name alone inspires the illusion of continuity in his life.

Tony seems to think that nod is guarantee enough, he relaxes in a way that makes Steve realize just how tense he was when he came into the restaurant. Steve hadn't noticed.

`Well, that settled, I think I'll head west and back to civilization. Civilization being obviously _not here_.´ Tony looks around with mocking disgust. `These people are still waiting for the arrival of the railway. Good luck with that people, I'm sure you'll crack the steam engine one of these days.´

Steve quietly puts down his knife and fork – there's a hollow, metallic _clink_ when he does. There it is, he thinks, there it comes back, that feeling he still associates with Tony Stark the most: a mix of anger and disappointment that makes his blood boil.

`Hey, don't say those things. This town is real, good America, you have no business looking down on them.´

Tony stares back at him with a dramatic frown.

`God. Talking to you is so stressful. You actually think people mean what they say.´

`They _should_ mean what they say.´

`Yes, in theory that's very nice and beautiful and all those things but. It doesn't work that way. Not in this world, and I'm sorry but that's the world you woke up to. And it's not because we are, all of us, deceitful assholes who get off on verbal schizophrenia, it's – something to put between ourselves and the world. We can't all go expressing every noble sentiment that pops into our heads, even if the sentiment was there in the first place. Mushy suits you just fine, Captain, I doubt I could pull it off. Again, not my style.´

This is how things escalate, Steve thinks; this is the moment when he manages to piss Tony Stark off as much as Tony does him. Their moments of understanding come and gone that easily, they are that fleeting. Such petty, irrelevant things, he doesn't know why they'd get so caught up in them. He knows Tony does not mean it. Tony knows Steve get it. It should be the easiest thing in the world to stop. Perhaps it's hopeless, they are hopeless. Steve can't help but push back.

`Don't patronize me, Mister Stark. I'm familiar with the concept of reading-between-the-lines. We had it in the 1940s. But if you talk disrespectfully about some folks, even if you don't mean it, you start _thinking_ disrespectfully about them, and will end up believing they deserve it. Because you yourself put that idea there.´

Tony gets up, his coffee and food untouched.

`Now I _do_ feel like an asshole. Thank you, you are such an excellent team leader. Call me if you ever reach California. Which, at your current speed and accounting for more of those visits of yours to our splendid National Parks, should be in about two months and three weeks. You can pick up the check here, right?´

Most of this Tony says when he is already halfway out of the door.

 

 

 

**three**

`So what was real America like, in the end? Was it Kerouacesque enough for you?´

The first time he drops by the Formerly Stark Tower unannounced Steve is tired, hungry, and content. It's been months.

There's no mission yet. There's just the feeling of coming back.

`I've heard about this Kerouac kid,´ he says, catching up on the joke. Steve figures that if he starts making jokes about the seventy years he's missed eventually people would stop teasing him. At least that's the plan these days.

`Yeah? I have a first edition of _The subterraneans_ somewhere in the library downstairs. It's his best work, if you ask me.´

Steve hasn't asked him.

`So welcome, I guess. To the renovated version of this building which you so thoughtlessly declared _ugly_ some time. That was you, wasn't it? I'd have you know that _at least_ 12% of the design is credited to Pepper, and that's a warning, dude.´

They step into the kitchen and there Pepper Potts is.

Steve has met her before – officially, once or twice. He likes her. She seems capable and he often wonder how Stark managed to get such a woman to stick with him for so long, but he doesn't want to pry. Steve does not mind her at all. But he's never seen her out of context like here. Or, putting it another way, not _in context_ like this: the version of Miss Potts in front of him right now seems to be perfectly at ease and happy with _belonging_ to this context, to the sunlight-filled kitchen and the slacks and a white t-shirt, gesturing Steve to take a seat at the table without much preamble.

`Welcome back home, Captain Rogers.´

`Ma'am.´

`Home?´ Tony turns to them as he grabs a pan and puts it out of the fire. `That's a bit of an exaggeration, we do not live in Brooklyn, fingers crossed.´

`Ignore him. Come on, take a seat.´

Steve does as he is told on both accounts.

` _Ignore him_?´ Tony protests, turning from the counter to stare at Pepper. `That's nice. Just for that I'm serving him first. Sit there and ponder the depths of my revenge while I finish this.´

Steve looks around: the place looks more lived-in that he had been expecting from the exterior, even though he can't think of a reason why someone would need so many computers in a kitchen. There's a sort of robotic claw grinding coffee in a corner. Steve refuses to be impressed.

Then Tony presents him with a plate of... _something_. Steve thinks it's some sort of organic matter, but he can't be sure.

`What is this?´ he asks.

`Eggs.´

`With what?´

`What do you mean with what? With _eggs_.´

`It looks like... concrete? Is this a test?´

`I apologize,´ Pepper tells him, though she doesn't look sorry _at all_. `Tony is the worst cook in the world.´

`I'm sure that is not statistically accurate. I can't be the worst c–´

`Why do you insist on trying to learn how to cook? You've been doing this for like a year. Cut your loses. You have the money, you could never ever have to cook a thing in your life if you wanted, _I_ could never ever–´

`Because _I like_ it. Because it's challenging.´

At this point Steve is pretty sure he could leave the room and they wouldn't notice. Steve has been warned by Agent Romanoff that this could happen. Tends to happen.

`What I don't get is... Why are you so bad at cooking? It's baffling. Aren't you a genius _scientist_?´

`It's not the same. Food is volatile! There is no accounting for taste! And I'm not that bad. Remember that time I made you pancakes, with blueberries?´

`You mean that time you woke up before me and went to that place across the street to get some pancakes and then you pretended you'd made them yourself?´

`I didn't just went to the bakery across the street, you are misrepresenting my – I also went to the grocery store to get the blueberries. Pepper, that's like two blocks away.´

Steve coughs.

`I do apologize again, Captain,´ Pepper repeats, her eyes still on Tony. `This is a dismal treatment of a guest. Do you want me to order some actual, real, non-toxic food for you?´

`No, I'm fine. The eggs and concrete will just do, thank you.´

And it is fine. The food is horrible, barely fit for human consumption, but it homely in its own weird way. Tony Stark is trying to be a nice host, in his own weird way.

Perhaps it's because he is tired and his eyes sting a bit; he's been up for a day and a half, trying to make the last leg of his journey in one go, taking on New York as the sun was rising, a romantic sentiment Tony would no doubt scowl at, if Steve told him, which he won't. Now he sees tiny white dots at the edges of his vision, and the rest is filled with sunlight, yellow at times, then turning orange. Across the table Tony and Pepper are sitting in the same chair and the light comes from the window behind them and Steve can't really see their expressions, they are eating this godawful food and Steve tries not to notice the way Tony's hand slips under her t-shirt at times and how that makes him uncomfortable because that sort of things a gentleman only ever does _in private_ but perhaps he should believe _everybody_ when they tell him that Tony is not a gentleman and maybe it's the weariness of the trip, or the fact that he is talking to familiar people after such a long time on his own, Steve doesn't know what it is, but he is happy to be back in the city again, and he is almost happy to see Tony Stark again.

 

 

 

**four**

It's a few days after their latest mission and he really wasn't expecting Tony to show up at his door in his old neighborhood. He thought he had gone back west.

It's one of those rare quiet days in their extremely unquiet lives.

`You know Brooklyn is hipster now, right? I should have known you'd stick to the lame part.´

That's the first thing Tony says, no hello or anything. Steve assures him there's a deli a couple of streets away that should be up to Tony's standards. They buy some food and eat as they walk uptown, aimlessly and at a leisure pace, with Prospect Park to their left. Steve finds it hard to contextualize Tony Stark in the landscape of his old life. He wonders what's up as Tony starts staring at the buildings in an odd manner, with a look on his face as if he couldn't remember where he parked his car.

There's this thing: Tony never talks about his father. Not with him, anyway.

But today he does, and Steve wonders how calculated this visit was, if this is the single purpose of their walk. Tony's tone is almost casual, as if it had just occurred to him:

`One of the best days –one of the few good days, really– that my father and I had together was in Brooklyn. Did I ever tell you that? No? I must have been about, I don't know, it was 1977 or 78 I'm pretty sure. My father was doing some contracting work in Queens, years after the Stark Expo he still owned the... Did you know about the Stark Expo? One of the few things it's actually a bummer you missed. Anyway, I have no idea why I was with him at work that day, why I wasn't with my mother, or at school, or being babysat by our chauffeur, there was no reason for me to be there. But I was and he – Howard Stark made the unprecedented decision of cutting his work day short to hang out with his kid. He said he knew this place in Brooklyn that made great milkshakes. It's no longer there, believe me I've looked . It was just a good day, you know. We walked there and we drank our milkshakes –I had chocolate, he had strawberry– and we looked out the window and... Just a good day. I remember it with such clarity...´

He is walking a couple of steps behind and away from Tony, instinctively sensing a need for distances. That gives him one of those rare chances of looking at Tony, really looking at him, and some times Steve looks at Tony like this and though he knows Tony looks physically older than him Steve can't help but thinking how much younger he is.

To distract his mood Steve conjures his own memories of the place for Tony: he points at a parking space behind a supermarket and tells him it used to be the lot where he played ball with other boys from the neighborhood, until right before the war (until everyone but Steve had been drafted). They organized local leagues. He tells Tony about a memorable final match one season, Steve's side against a team of boys from a nearby yeshiva, their fourth such a fierce hitter that one ball hit Bucky in the wrist and fractured his radius, he had to be rushed to the hospital. Steve, of course, was an awful player – he was out of breath by the second inning, but he loved playing, even if he was of limited use for his team. Tony seems to become interested in all this and begins asking questions. Who won that final? Did Steve ever score a run? What was his favorite position? He had no idea Tony liked baseball.

`I wasn't able to do well in the important positions, of course,´ Steve admits. `But the times they let me play there I really liked second base. It was exciting.´

`Yeah, I'm a very big fan of second base. It's Pepper's favorite too.´

It's weak but it might be a sign that Tony's mood has lifted and Steve finds himself chuckling without really meaning to.

Then Tony stops and turns around.

`My father talked a lot about you. Were you good friends?´

Wrong-footed, Steve gives him a little nod and they keep on walking.

`Yes, I guess so,´ Steve tries to explain. `We were fighting a war together. That always brings people closer. I wouldn't say we became friends immediately. I think I misjudged him at first.´

Tony slows down again, looks at Steve over his shoulder.

`You misjudged him? Funny how those things happen.´

`Yeah, funny.´

 

 

 

**five**

His first time visiting Los Angeles and he watches Tony get drunk because Tony insists on having a designated driver and it's Happy's day off. Steve suspects this is a lie. He also feels a bit annoyed by how Tony seems to be alternatively amused and regretful about the fact that Steve can't get drunk.

The bar is the exact mix of slick and seedy. A combination worthy of Tony Stark. Their drinks are the same tone of abrasive crimson as Tony's shirt. He wonders if that's why he ordered them.

Tony makes a risky opening gambit.

`You think I should ask Pepper to marry me?´

Steve raises an eyebrow. This is definitely suspicious.

`What? It's a question.´

`Are you asking me for advice?´

Tony snorts. Steve just _glares_ as he tries to chase a straw around the rim of his glass. But he can't be that drunk that he's actually considered asking Steve's opinion. Still suspicious, Steve tries again.

`Are you asking _me_ for romantic advice? Me, the man who is, and I quote you, word for word, the Ultimate American Virgin?´

Tony waves his napkin in Steve's face, fending off his complain.

`You must be new to Tony Stark. We've been over this already, many times. Do you really not know that you should never, ever listen to any word I say? It's like rule number one around these parts.´

Steve gives him a paternalistic smile because he knows that's only half true.

Then he thinks about it.

`What do you want me to say? I grew up in the 1930s. I would have married that lady of yours a long time and many _cohabitations_ ago.´

He sips on his drink to hide his face. Tony is not fooled by that.

`I think it's really cute how you still blush when you talk about sex. Also, I'm reinforcing the walls in the guest room before I let you stay over again, you perv.´

`Good thing too, son. Make sure you reinforce the kitchen walls as well.´

His tone is smug and he enjoys Tony's expression at that. So he smiles smugly to drive the point home.

Tony lifts his glass as if to make a toast.

`People actually have absolutely no idea how bad you are, Captain.´

`No. And I'd rather it remained a secret, Mister Stark.´

`Oh, we have secrets now? Careful or next we know Nick Fury will have us weaving friendship bracelets.´

Thinking back about how the conversation started something occurs to Steve.

`Hey. I've never been to a wedding,´ he tells Tony brightly.

`Who says I'm even inviting you?´

 

 

 

**six**

It's not the first time he watches Tony Stark almost get killed, of course, but it the first time he registers the moment with panic running through his body and curling inside him like sharp coil wire. The idea that it might be the first and only time he watches the idiot _actually_ get killed.

They are in the middle of the battle and Tony choosing this time to get killed would be not just awful but also strategically very inconvenient for the side of good. Leave it to Tony to do that kind of thing.

Steve feels idiotically alone. A bereft kind of loneliness where he can almost taste the silence around him – that particular silence that settles in after someone throws a building at you. He wishes the rest would be here, then he would know what to do, he wishes Thor or Natasha were here specially but this is not their sector in the battle. This is his sector. His and Tony's. And now: that particular silence of Tony not talking, Tony not breathing.

`Stop it. You can't be dead,´ Steve mutters.

His hands shake as he drags Tony's body from under the rubble, pieces missing from the suit. The sound of gunshots nearby pierce the silence. Then a faint drumming in the ear, like the moment before thunder. Steve draws comfort from these. He falls back, sitting on the ground.

He grins at Tony's unresponsive form.

`You can't be dead because if you are dead then Pepper is going to _kill you_.´

It's soft, but Steve hears the drawing of a long, broken breath.

Then there's coughing.

Tony opens one eye tentatively, doesn't risk moving just yet.

`Next time I'll let you lead the attack,´ he says.

During this one irrational second Steve is convinced he's never hated Tony Stark as much as right now. He stands up, brushing the dust from his hair and picking up his shield.

`Some times I think you play dead for so long because you are trying to come up with a one-liner.´ he tells Tony.

`You know me only too well. I thought nobody had worked that one out yet.´

Steve was worried about the damage but obviously Tony is just fine. The few scratches will heal. Nothing can be done about his personality, though. Tony props himself on one elbow, checking the state of his armor. He mutter a swear word in a stunned tone.

Steve smiles to himself and offers his hand as Tony tries to stand up again.

`Come on, soldier, the battle is not over yet.´

`You are a slave driver, Captain, you know that? I should warn you: if we survive this one, I'm unionizing.´


End file.
